


Dark Deals, Silver Linings

by violent_ends



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Chloe Decker Finds Out, Comedy, Deal with a Devil, F/M, Inspired by Kuroshitsuji, Lucifer (TV) Season/Series 01, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Needs A Hug, Magic, POV Chloe Decker, References to Canon, Romance, Slow Burn, Soft Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Winged Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: Shot by Jimmy Barnes and fearing for her life, Chloe prays to “anyone who might listen” and ends up summoning the Devil by accident. The deal seems simple enough: her life is saved, her soul is doomed.Then why does Satan keep following her around?
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 200
Kudos: 611
Collections: catchingthewindfav





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, I’m back with another AU! This time, a fairly shorter one. Huge thanks and credit go to ObliObla, who betaed parts of the fic, came up with and wrote the descriptions of Lucifer’s clothes and crown and gave me the inspiration for the title; and to ZeeLinn, who posted what started the conversation that led to this. The fic was born out of a brainstorming session with both, so I dedicate it to them.
> 
> The premise is that Lucifer never moved to LA, so Chloe solves the Delilah case on her own. The overall concept and aesthetic are loosely inspired by the manga/anime Kuroshitsuji, or Black Butler, but it’s not necessary for you to have read or seen it: just keep in mind that the lore will be a bit different.
> 
> The story is all written and will be updated regularly. Hope you like it!

Chloe tracks down Jimmy Barnes to the recording studio where the scumbag is harassing yet another young singer, head full of dreams and hopes that will inevitably be squashed under the unforgiving foot of reality. She’s been there, she knows. Life isn’t a movie. The road to fame is not an enchanted yellow brick road leading to a magical promised land. It’s rather a dirty back alley that smells of filth and compromises and regrettable mistakes.

She does everything right. Well, almost. She draws her gun out, tells the indebted producer he’s under arrest, manages to usher the singer, musicians and employees away from the booth before the guy whips out his own gun from the back pocket of his pants, frantic and desperate as so many of them become, like cornered animals lashing out in one last attempt at survival.

She does everything right, until she doesn’t. Until Jimmy Barnes, just as she’s trying to tell him that it’s over, that backup is on the way, that he has nowhere to run, fires at her without warning, hitting her right below her left collarbone. Chloe goes down, the breath knocked out of her, her own weapon flying away and out of reach. Her head hurts as it collides with the ground, bursts of white flashing in front of her eyes as she blinks up in shock.

The sound of hurried steps lets her know Jimmy is running away, but she can’t do anything about it. Backup is not on the way. She thought she could do this on her own. She doesn’t even have a partner to count on, not in any way that matters: not when there is some serious digging to do and too many rich feathers to ruffle. And so she will die here, terrified and alone in a pool of her own blood.

Serves you well, Chloe Jane Decker, for always being the odd one out; for asking the wrong questions that lead to the right answers no one wants to hear, for deciding to play lone cowboy and show everyone you’re more than just a pretty face, more than the body of an actress with the power of your dead cop father’s name behind you.

She tries to fish her phone out of her tight pocket – _too_ tight, the rough fabric of her jeans gripping the device in an unyielding hold. Her hand shakes as she gives up, her chest heaving convulsively with what will probably be her final breaths.

Chloe thinks of Trixie. Thinks of the smile and dimples she will never see again, and grieves for the laughter this moment will steal from her daughter’s heart for a long, long time. She’s been there, she knows. Life isn’t a movie. The road to justice, too, is paved with horror and despair.

Then she thinks of her mother, but mostly, her father. Once again, she’s following in his footsteps, dying in the line of duty. How sad, and how fitting. She is always reminded of him, every moment of every day, grounded in his absence by a gift she never takes off: the medallion of St. Michael, patron of police officers, soldiers, firemen, of all those who work with danger and pray to live another day to keep at it, to defeat the evil that plagues the world.

Chloe never believed in anything. She never believed there was someone looking down on her, protecting her, keeping an eye out for her or anyone else. The predicament she’s in is the definitive proof that she is alone. No angel will come to the rescue, and there is no God to ask for mercy; this, too, she knows.

And yet, right now, in this very moment, Chloe prays. As tears spring from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, the pain in the side of her chest pulsing hot and unbearable, she clutches at the metal disk attached to the chain around her neck with a bloody, trembling hand.

“I don’t want to die,” she sobs, voice small and scared, so very scared. “Please, I don’t want to go. If there’s anyone listening, _please_ … I'll do anything.”

_I'll give anything._

Because it’s true: she'd give anything to see Trixie again, to have just one more day to hold her monkey in her arms and tell her everything will be okay. Anything.

Even her soul.

As thoughts start to escape her, the lights on the ceiling too bright for her suddenly tired eyes, she feels the floor shake under her back, like the beginning of a light earthquake. She hears the sound of something breaking, like a piece of cloth being torn apart, but when she manages to lift her head toward the source of it, she realizes with a gasp that it’s the ground itself.

Ashes twirl in the air in an upward spiral from the literal tear in the fabric of the world, right where Jimmy Barnes stood, right in the middle of the freaking recording booth she is slowly dying in. Chloe tries to get away, scooting back on her right elbow, wincing in pain and panting harshly from sheer terror and disbelief. But there is nowhere to run – in this, at least, she did tell the truth, although it seems to apply only to her now.

She manages to slide all the way to the glass panel behind her, the one that didn’t break from the other bullets that were fired but missed her. She sits up awkwardly, the shards on the floor cutting her palms with the motion, but she barely even registers it as a nightmarish figure suddenly appears from the hole in the ground, which closes so quickly it almost feels like it was never there at all.

Chloe stifles a scream. What now stands in front of her is a monster, a creature out of horror movies and ghost stories around a campfire. It looks like a man, but it isn’t, it can’t be: no human could survive the burns he seems to have endured, long, deep lines of scarred tissue marking its forehead, cheeks and nose. Red eyes stare at her, a blazing inferno barely contained in two fathomless pits.

What makes the sight even more jarring is that the creature is dressed like a man, although not one of this day and age. The coat covering its ravaged body stretches from its knees to a high, almost jagged-looking collar formed from overlapping scales, black but almost iridescent in the light. Underneath, she can see a deep red shirt, darker than the being's flesh and interwoven with a fabric that seems to have a shiny, glossy quality, almost as if it were spun from blood. The trousers are black leather, hidden from the calf down by thick, sturdy boots of the same color, sleek and finely tapered toward the toe.

On its head sits a crown of more scales, some as dark as the coat, some paler, glittering from within like tarnished silver. They overlap in a strangely delicate manner, their sharper points raised toward the sky, like some dark mirror of a cartoon or fast-food paper crown.

But as she stares at it, desperate for any escape from the flames that lick the monster’s pitch black sclera, Chloe realizes that what she thought were scales are more like feathers, their finely-etched vanes glinting in the studio lights.

“W-what are you?” she croaks, still clutching at the medallion as if it could be a lifeline, a talisman to protect her from being eaten alive or dragged down to the bowels of the Earth by her feet.

The creature flinches, and through the haze, Chloe realizes that this whole time, it’s been in shock, too. Shock at being here. Shock at the state she’s in. Is that worry, the thing she sees blossoming in those fiery eyes?

“Your rescue party of one, it seems,” the monster says, surprising her with a smooth British accent and a deep, musical voice.

And then… it changes. Chloe blinks, and the red is gone. A man swiftly walks toward her now, then carefully crouches down next to her to inspect where she’s been shot. She flinches away, still terrified, and his handsome features scrunch up in almost parental disapproval.

“Now, now, none of that,” he scolds her, but makes no further attempt to touch her.

Chloe swallows, squirming under his unblinking gaze. Warm brown eyes study her with concern, waiting. Thinking back on his words, she realizes that he’s right: he’s her only chance at making it out of here alive, a chance… she prayed for.

_Even her soul_ , she had thought. And she still means it.

The ashes swirling up from underground, the red skin, the eyes: it all makes sense. Even in her condition, Chloe trusts herself to know she wasn’t dreaming. With a certainty that shatters everything she has ever believed in (or better, everything she has always believed could _not_ be), she knows who she’s staring at, now.

“I don’t want to die,” she blurts again, whiny and desperate, as a distant part of her mind screams at her to get away. But she did this, she called him, she must have somehow; and she’s ready. “Please, I–”

“I won’t let you,” the Devil tells her, his tone heated and soothing – what a clever deception he makes, with his sharp, masculine, stubble-covered jaw and his smooth jet-black hair; a king of sin and temptation, inspirer of forbidden thoughts and desires, conceding horrible deals to those who are already, and conveniently, hopeless and doomed.

Chloe surrenders to him, because she has no other choice. She moves her arm away, baring herself to him, ready to accept whatever price he will offer. Ready to go home to her daughter and have a hopefully long life, long enough for Trixie to become her own person, before dying and ending up a damned soul, welcomed at the gates of Hell by Satan’s satisfied grin of anticipation.

She expects a quill and a yellowed contract to appear out of thin air, or maybe for a burning symbol to be drawn in the middle of her chest, her skin peeling away as she heals in the flesh, but dies in the soul. She expects something to happen, something… inside, a scorching grip squeezing at her heart to claim it forever.

What she doesn’t expect to see, instead, is a pair of wings. White wings, feathery wings, angel wings. Wings glowing with a light that is divine, cool and warm at the same time, seeping into every pore of her skin and every crevice of her weakened mind. Wings protruding from the Devil's clothed back and spreading outwards above her, blocking out everything else, shielding her from further harm.

But of course, it makes sense. He’s a fallen angel, _the_ fallen angel; better not to be fooled by how angelic he can still will himself to look. What she saw in the beginning, in the very beginning, is the truth she must remember.

“Hold still,” he says, probably to get her back to the present, to stop her from moving frantically as she tries to take in the endless expanse of his wings above her head. Chloe stills, staring back into his eyes, and holds her breath for what’s to come.

The Devil lowers one of the wings toward himself, bending it in a gentle curve, and plucks out the nearest feather he can reach. His hands are big, his fingers long, with a black onyx ring around the middle one. He looks at her cautiously, making sure she can see what he’s doing, and Chloe nods in encouragement. The world might have shifted on its axis, but she’s still bleeding out on the floor.

She thinks she understands what he’s about to do, so she pulls the hem of her blouse to the side, revealing the source of her pain and misery. The motion has her gritting her teeth sharply, her eyes shut tight for a moment.

Then… peace. Respite from the suffering. And light, light, _light_ poured into her very being.

Chloe opens her eyes just in time to see the feather he put on her literally fade away against her skin. The bullet pops out of its hole with a squelch, and a scene straight out of a horror movie unfolds before her eyes as the blood pooling on the floor where she fell and then dragged herself away _retreats_ back into her body until the gap created by the gunshot closes around itself smoothly. The only evidence left of her near-death experience are the shattered glass panels of the studio and the drying red soaking her clothes.

Despite the shock and mild disgust at the spectacle, Chloe doesn’t feel lightheaded anymore. On the contrary, she feels stronger and stronger by the second, reinvigorated by the blood once again flowing in her veins.

The deal, whatever it entails, is made, and the proof slowly blossoms on her skin, but not painfully. Just like ink on paper, she watches, mesmerized, as a star appears over the spot where the bullet used to be stuck in. Once the moving line finishes its drawing, tracing five distinct points, a circle completes the mark – the _branding_ , she realizes. The symbol glows faintly, absurdly, with a delicate lilac hue, easily covered by her blouse once she stops holding the fabric with her hand.

Chloe swallows and looks up at the creature she just sold her soul to: Satan, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, ruler of a Hell she now knows exists. The Devil folds his wings out of view, _somehow_ , making them disappear somewhere inside his back. Then he offers her his hand to help her up, and the fact that Chloe silently takes it is a clear indication of the state of shock she’s still in.

“So… what happens now?” she asks as she finally stands on her own two feet, incredibly relieved at her ability to do so. It sinks in, maybe only now, that she will live. She will get to see her daughter again. She will get to keep helping people, or try to. She will get to keep chasing a happiness that eludes her, and probably fail at it.

“Well, first of all, I would _love_ to find out how you managed to hire my lovely services,” the Devil replies, amused – because of course he is, and Chloe is a fool, but she can’t regret it, not yet at least. She probably will once her soul will be consumed by the eternal fires of damnation, but it is so outlandish to imagine, even now, that the punishment she will suffer and the price she will pay are still too abstract to truly contemplate.

“I, uh… I was clutching this in my hand,” she explains, lifting the medallion for him to see, “and then I asked for help to anyone who would listen.”

The Devil steps closer and takes the pendant in his hand, balancing it on his palm to inspect it. Chloe tries not to flinch again at his renewed closeness, realizing only now how tall and imposing he is, even in this… form. The one he uses to trick naïve people like her with a smile, a helping hand and a perfectly accented voice.

And then he laughs. Satan _laughs_ , out loud, absolutely delighted by whatever he just found.

“Oh, this is priceless!” he exclaims, clutching at his belly, handsome features scrunching up in glee. “You were expecting Michael? Out of everyone? Good thing your blood ended up on _my_ part of this funny little thing, otherwise you'd be dead by now, love.”

He turns the medallion for her to see, and he’s right: her blood is smeared over the contorted, twisting figure of the dragon under Michael’s sandal, and the liquid has now seeped into the metal to never be washed away from it, filling the bottom part of the pendant like a half-completed coloring book of the occult. Chloe can’t say it fully makes sense, but she figures there’s no point arguing over magic or whatever this is.

What’s surprising, though, is the last part of the sentence she just heard.

“You mean Michael, the archangel, wouldn’t have come to help me instead?”

“Nope,” the Devil answers emphatically as he lets go of the medallion. Such a word sounds so absurd coming from the mouth of a man wearing a scaled coat and a freaking crown of iron spikes, but after all, none of this is normal. “Dear Old Dad and His silly rules, you see. Luckily for you, sweetheart, I find I just couldn’t care less.”

Well, this checks out, at least. The rebel angel of…

“Dad, as in… G-God?” Chloe whispers, distantly wondering why exactly she’s having a whole conversation with Satan instead of alerting the station about Jimmy Barnes being on the loose, or the fact that she was shot and… but no, she'd better keep it a secret, otherwise how would she explain her miraculous recovery? She needs to be smart about this. She needs to keep her cool.

But one freak-out at a time. First on the list, God is real. A metaphorical slap to the face if ever there was one, pushing her off her very rational pedestal, safely rooted in the soil of reality.

“The one and only, thankfully,” the Devil confirms, doing nothing to hide his disdain. Then he claps his hands together, and continues, “So! What is your name, darling?”

Chloe furrows her brow. She just sold her soul to him, and he doesn’t _know_? She finds she’s never felt more insignificant.

“Chloe Decker. Detective Chloe Decker. And I have to go now.”

She picks up the bloody, cramped bullet from the floor and stuffs it in her pocket, making sure to hide any evidence of her injury. Then she turns to leave, shards of glass crunching under her boots. She wishes Satan would tell her how this will work, but if his intention is to tease her and play games, she figures she’ll find out on her own eventually.

She has to call this in and make sure Barnes is apprehended: not even life-altering decisions and discoveries can come in the way of her work or the safety of the city she has sworn to protect.

“Uh, a Detective! Lovely!” the Devil bounces on his feet, starting to follow her – why is he following her? “We’re going to have a lot of fun together, then.”

“Why are you–” she starts, then looks down as she feels something tug at her wrist. She gasps. There is a thin but sturdy metal band around her right wrist, glowing with the same weird, otherworldly hue of the mark on her skin. It’s connected to a chain of the same material, probably silver; a chain that leads all the way to a collar around the Devil’s neck, and which was not there a moment ago, not until she tried to put distance between them.

Chloe meets his gaze, shocked, and he smirks.

“Seems like you’re stuck with me, Detective,” he informs her, wiggling his perfectly groomed eyebrows at her. “Until I collect on my debt, that is.”

Does he mean… oh God, will he haunt her from now until the end of her days? This isn’t exactly what she signed up for. Then again, she didn’t really sign anything, which should have been the first indication that she was tricked and that he holds the power to make the rules as he goes.

The Devil deceived her. Well, no shit.

“You mean… my soul?” Chloe asks anyway, just to fully acknowledge her sentence and try to move on, to learn to live with it. With him, whispering mischief in her ear from behind her shoulder.

The Devil’s expression hardens for a moment. Was she not supposed to ask for clarification?

“When your soul is ready for Hell, it will go there, yes,” he answers slowly, deliberately, leaving no room for argument, though there is something in his eyes Chloe can’t really place. She tries to shake away the feeling he is _sorry_ , because why would he be? And if he looks like it, it’s just another deception.

The lobby of the recording studio is empty when she enters it (well, when _they_ enter it). The people she helped escape must have left in terror when she let them and then assumed she finalized the arrest, and the soundproof walls of the booth must have at least dimmed the sound of the shots fired. She’ll say the bullets missed their target to justify the damage left behind.

She calls the precinct and reports what happened, minus the fact that Barnes actually managed to shoot her. In response, the LAPD puts out a BOLO for Jimmy Barnes, and sends someone to process the scene for ballistics, bound to find nothing besides casings and pieces of glass – a small blessing out of this whole mess.

As she reaches her car, Chloe realizes people are looking at her in a weird way because of her stained clothes, but no one is even sparing a glance at the looming figure trailing behind her. Granted, LA is full of… unconventional characters, but this distinctly looks like they’re going to a BDSM sex dungeon, and the picture they make should at least catch someone’s attention.

“So, help me understand… only I can see you? Is that how this works?” she asks as she climbs into the driver seat. Meanwhile, as the Devil walks around the vehicle and takes his seat as well, the chain sort of… stretches, phases _through_ the car, and magically shortens to lay in the space between the seats.

“Indeed it is. This show right here is for your eyes only, Detective,” the Devil replies with a wink, closing the car door on his side. He even puts his seatbelt on without her asking, which makes her wonder how often he mingles with mortals to strike deals like this one. Still, as accustomed as he might be, he couldn’t look more out of place if he tried.

He is her personal ghost, then. Something Chloe will have to learn to ignore, or people will think she’s insane and she’ll risk losing her job, maybe even her daughter. The daughter she did all this for in the first place.

She can do this. She _has_ to do this. This is her life now.

“Where are we going?” the Devil asks as she drives away, intent on going home to hug Trixie as hard as she can in order to remind herself that all this was worth it.

Chloe looks ahead with resolve, gripping the steering wheel. Maybe, if she keeps silent for long enough, Satan will get bored with her and let her go, allowing her to live the rest of her mortal life in peace before seeing her again.

“Hello? Is anyone in there?”

Once again met with silence, he grows nervous, tapping his fingers on his knees. His long, long legs barely fit. He is such a solid presence, even if no one else can see it. How will she manage to ignore him for (hopefully) many decades to come? Doesn’t he have other people to trick, anyway?

“You might call me Lucifer, by the way,” he decides to tell her to fill the silence, as the lights from cars and buildings in the thickening darkness of the evening dance on his face. “Morningstar, when I happen to spend a few days topside. Well, technically it’s _the_ Morning Star, but I try to fit in as much as I can. Still tends to turn a few heads, religious ones, especially, but I make up for it with my irresistible charms.”

At this point, Chloe is pretty sure someone out there has slept with the Devil – _Lucifer_ – without even knowing it. She swallows thickly, and keeps driving.

“So, are we going to punish the miscreant that almost killed you? That is what you do for a living, correct? Not that far from my line of business, come to think of it. We do have a lot in common, you and I.”

His line of business, meaning… eternal torture? Stoking flames with a pitchfork to barbecue damned souls indefinitely? Sure, they have a lot in common. Right.

“You know, darling, I've been told I have great conversational skills, among other things. Come now, why don’t you just give me a chance, mm?”

Chloe ignores him, again. Lucifer sighs in exasperation and, surprisingly, stops talking. When they reach her destination, he trails behind her silently, all the way inside her mother’s house.

He’s here, where she lives, and this whole thing just turned extremely real. Suddenly, Chloe can’t breathe. It’s a good thing Trixie is with her ex husband, who will take the girl back home for dinner in a few hours, because Chloe needs a moment. Well, several.

It’s only when she walks into the bathroom that she realizes the obvious problem she’s faced with. She turns to Lucifer, who is standing just outside the open door with his arms crossed over his chest and a grin on his face. He seems to have no intention to move, or speak, for that matter. Probably her fault for giving him the silent treatment.

“I need to take a shower,” she tells him, trying to sound stern. _And have a proper movie-style meltdown while I'm at it._

“Oh, don’t mind me, love,” Lucifer replies, leaning against the door frame with a playful look in his eyes. “I'll be a good Devil and refrain from any form of commentary. Though I must say… now that I'm imagining it, there is something familiar about you, but for the eternal life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

Whatever he’s talking about, Chloe has no patience for it.

“No, I mean... you need to leave. I have a right to my privacy, even if I lost any right to my soul.”

Lucifer makes a humming sound, considering it. Chloe prays that it will be this easy.

“I'll tell you what,” he eventually says, “I'll pop back down to check on a few things, and I'll be back at your lovely side in one Earth-hour, tops. Sounds good?”

_Sure, but feel free to make it a lot more than one hour_ , Chloe thinks somberly. If he can just leave, why is he torturing her like this? Oh, right. He’s the Devil. Torturing is probably the main life skill in his resume.

“What about this?” she still inquires, jiggling the magical chain dangling from her wrist and his neck.

“Oh, I'm not _here,_ here,” Lucifer explains casually, as if it’s somehow supposed to make sense. “I’m not physically connected to you, just mentally, because you summoned me. Everything you saw back there only took place in your head, aside from the miracle I performed, I mean. If anyone had walked in, they would have seen you talking to yourself from the beginning. As a matter of fact, I'm taking a cat nap on my throne as we speak, but if I don’t move every now and then my demons might think I'm dead, and we certainly can’t have that.”

And with this, he makes a flourish, spreads his wings just beyond the doorframe, and flies down to disappear into the floor. The chain leaves with him, but the metal band stays around Chloe’s wrist. Something tells her nothing made by humans would be able to open it, so she doesn’t even try.

She’s a prisoner on parole, and at some point down the line, she’ll have to report back to her handler.

Chloe doesn’t cry in the shower. She thought she would, but the tears don’t come. It’s more of a hollow feeling, a sense of resignation. What’s done is done. She was in a tough situation, and she made a tough call. It’s something she is forced to do all the time, something she understands. This is the only way she can find to rationalize what happened, and she clings to it desperately, because she needs her sanity now more than ever.

She traces the five-pointed star under her collarbone with wet fingertips, and lets what she wishes was holy water flow down the drain together with, hopefully, her fear.

~🔗~

Lucifer comes back before Dan and Trixie, as promised. He just… pops out from an imaginary gap in the floor, wings spread before putting them away. Chloe startles, almost dropping the knife she was chopping vegetables with. She’ll have to get used to it or she’ll look like a lunatic in front of other people.

“Don’t you look ravishing,” the Devil comments as he takes her in again, focusing on her damp hair cascading messily over a light white T-shirt. Then something lights up in his eyes, a glimmer of recognition she doesn’t like at all. “Hold the bloody phone. I thought I remembered you from somewhere! You were in _Hot Tub High School_! Oh, that movie was the highlight of my weekend a few years back! I'm star-struck!”

Great. On top of everything else, Satan has seen her boobs. Fantastic. Chloe gives him a tight smile and goes back to her task.

Visibly frustrated by her renewed silence, Lucifer starts wandering, the chain stretching and phasing through things and walls to allow him free rein. As he explores the space, he comments on how beautiful the house is (“I didn’t know that flick payed so well!”) and gushes over her mother’s cheesy movie posters (“The daughter of the Vampire Queen herself, you must be so proud!”).

The amount of pop culture knowledge he seems to possess is bizarre, but also scary. He’s been watching them for years, Chloe realizes. Humans. Watching and plotting and taking advantage of their weaknesses to find the perfect moment to strike.

She might have even seen him before, a random man in the crowd, not knowing what he was. The thought sends a chill down her spine. She’s never been truly alone in the world as she believed, but being proven wrong couldn’t be more traumatizing.

Dinner is ready just in time for Dan and Trixie’s arrival. Chloe’s ex husband walks through the door and runs to her immediately, taking a hold of her shoulders to look at her from head to toe in concern, despite almost certainly being aware that she left the scene unscathed. He’s always had a hard time seeing her as the competent and trained policewoman she is, always struggled to consider her as anything more than the (deceivingly) delicate-looking mother of his child.

“Hey, are you okay? I heard what happened. I tried calling you but you didn’t pick up.”

“I'm okay, Dan. I'm sorry, I was in the shower,” Chloe replies, which is true, but it’s also true that she didn’t call back, eager to enjoy a moment of quiet to gather her thoughts in a semblance of normality.

Dan relaxes at her reassurance, but then his expression hardens. “You shouldn’t have gone there alone, Chlo. What were you thinking? First you insist on making a fuss over what should have been an open-and-shut case, then you go and confront the murderer by yourself? You could have been shot back there, or killed! When will you start playing by the rules?”

As in, _When will you stop making me uncomfortable with your tendency to question the laziness or outright corruption of the force?_

“What a douche,” Lucifer pipes up from the side, shaking his head in disapproval. “So, do you just have a sexual arrangement with this dim-witted cretin, or are you two–Aaah, get back!” he suddenly exclaims, jumping backwards at the sight of Trixie appearing from behind her father’s legs.

Chloe ignores his weird reaction and crouches down to finally hug her daughter, the only source of happiness and comfort she can find in this overly crowded room.

“Oh, monkey, I’ve missed you so much today,” she whispers into the girl’s curly brown hair. “So, so much.”

_And I almost lost you_. Oh, it was worth it, alright.

Trixie hugs her back awkwardly, clearly surprised by her choked tone. “I've missed you too, mommy,” she replies in her tiny voice, then tilts her head to the side. “Is that a new bracelet? Wait, is it a gift? Do you have a _boyfriend_?”

So other people can see the metal band, and probably the star-shaped mark on her skin, too, if she were to show it. Good to know.

“You can call me that if you like,” Lucifer whispers in her ear, suddenly close, _too_ close. “I'll have you know I'm not a serious relationship kind of Devil, but if you’re willing to keep an open mind, I'm game.”

And now Satan is flirting with her. In front of her daughter. Who cannot see him.

“No, monkey. It’s just something I felt like buying for myself. Now let’s eat, mm? Come on, I'm starving.”

Chloe leads a grumpy Dan out the door and settles with her daughter at the dining table. As they enjoy their meal, the Devil leans against the nearest wall and proceeds to throw random comments at her; comments that, since they have company, he knows she can’t answer to anyway.

“I've never understood the human desire to procreate,” he says as he stares at Trixie eating noisily and listens to her recounting the events of her school day. “Children are hideous little creatures. Terrible taxing burdens.” A pause, a dismissive wave of his hand in the air. “Well, yours is fine. I mean, nothing to crow about, but nothing to be too embarrassed about, either, so that’s quite good.”

Chloe can wrap her mind around the fact that the Devil has to be handsome, charming, a gentleman leading you astray without you even noticing or caring; all these things make sense. She’s not sure she understands what he gains out of being such a dick, though.

The sentiment has at least one silver lining: Lucifer doesn’t want anything to do with Trixie (who can’t consciously touch him or address him anyway, but still), so he makes himself scarce as Chloe tucks her daughter into bed, taking advantage of the magically stretching chain to go sit on the couch in the living room. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem dangerous or ill-intentioned, and he _did_ save Chloe’s life; but still, the idea of her daughter and the Devil in the same room (her bedroom, no less) would be quite disconcerting.

Once she's “alone” again, Chloe pours herself a glass of cheap wine and sits on the other couch, at an angle from the one Lucifer is occupying. She takes a sip and buries herself into the cushions, closing her eyes with a long sigh and leaning fully against the backrest. The feeling of being constantly watched is heavy and suffocating, but if she stays like this, maybe she can pretend she really is by herself.

If only.

“Not going to offer, I gather? I thought you’d have better manners, Detective.”

Chloe pries one eye open to glare at Lucifer. He’s sitting with both arms stretched along the back of the couch as if he owns it, long leather-clad legs elegantly crossed; a king, a literal king waiting for her to offer him a glass of wine as if she was a cupbearer and this was his hellish castle, assuming he has one.

“You could just go and pour one for yourself, you know.”

Of course, a part of her tells her to be nice, to always say yes, to do everything she can not to enrage him. But Chloe is tired. No, she’s _exhausted_. And if this is how it will be, she can’t let him think he has any power over her, at least no more than he already does.

Lucifer looks surprised, but doesn’t comment on her tone. He just stands up and goes to do exactly what she told him to do. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

“Long day?” the King of Hell asks softly once he sits back in his spot. Then he takes a sip and makes a face, but decides not to voice his clear disgust. Good. Point 2 for Chloe.

The question baffles her, especially the lack of sarcasm in it: does he really not understand the turmoil she’s dealing with? Well, apparently not, but there is no harm in being honest.

“The longest of my life.”

When he stays silent, Chloe allows herself to drink him in. She tries to erase the image of his red and ravaged face from her mind by becoming acquainted with the way he looks now, lean and dark and… reassuring, in a way. A palpable presence, at least for her. A man so beautiful it’s actually terrifying.

Is this what he looked like in the beginning, back when he really was an angel of the Lord? Or does he make himself look like this to be exactly what people need him to be to fall at his feet?

When he found her on the floor and changed, did he know, somehow, the kind of beauty Chloe would be attracted to?

“I'm going to bed,” she announces suddenly, standing up from the couch. “I’d appreciate it if you could avoid following me.”

Lucifer looks offended by the implication that he was going to, as if he didn’t previously suggest to stay in the bathroom while she showered. Then again, he was probably just teasing her: she should really stop assuming he means anything he says.

“You think I'd just stand there and watch you sleep? I'm not a bloody perv. I'll only break the sanctity of your bedroom at your request, Detective.” He leaves his glass on the table and stands up, his expression suddenly grave, serious. “I hope you have a good night.”

And he leaves again, with a whoosh that lasts no more than a heartbeat. Chloe has no doubt she’ll see him again in the morning, when _he_ will be the one napping or slipping in whatever state of trance he needs to be in to communicate with her. She takes the mercy of sleeping alone for the courtesy it is, a small gift for her to cherish.

Once she finally retreats to her bedroom, she realizes she didn’t put the medallion back on after the shower. After some consideration, she decides to hide the now permanently bloody necklace in her chest of drawers, unsure of how wearing it would make her feel now that she’s aware of its power. She hates that its meaning got ruined, twisted into something ominous by the events of the day.

When she falls asleep, she dreams of two red eyes staring back at her from the shadows, and of damned, rotten souls dancing in their flames.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we feeling after that date announcement video? Cause I am freaking out! Good thing I wrote this before :D

The LAPD catches Jimmy Barnes a few days later, as he tries to flee the country on a friend's private jet. Chloe watches as he gets dragged kicking and screaming through the precinct, all the way into one of the interrogation rooms. With no new cases to go hunt for leads for, she has spent the day mostly catching up on paperwork: a very smart move, as it turned out, because being stuck at the station with other people constantly around has given her the perfect excuse not to answer when Lucifer speaks.

She asks to be inside the room to hear the full confession (it’s her case after all, and she was the one who personally went after the guy), but Dan insists on making her stay beyond the tinted glass to spare her another unpleasant encounter after the “trauma she endured”; on top of that, he also makes sure to be authorized to take her place next to her partner for the interrogation.

His overprotective tone used to almost be endearing, once upon a time. Now it’s just frustrating and overwhelming, bordering on infuriating.

Defeated, all Chloe can do is step into the adjacent cubicle. Lucifer trails behind her, unnaturally quiet, and settles next to her to watch the conversation unfold.

As Barnes calls his victim, Delilah, every name in the book, Chloe feels the temperature in the small room rise. She turns slightly to find Lucifer seething, fists clenched at his sides and jaw set in a hard line.

“What will happen to this cockroach?” he asks her, eyes fixed on the man in question.

Chloe can’t find it in herself to ignore him this time, given the fact that they’re alone and how invested he seems. Does the Devil truly care for a human he didn’t even know?

“Well, he'll go to jail. Hopefully for a long time,” she explains. “It’s not up to us to decide that, but we did our part.”

Lucifer still won’t look at her. Chloe doesn’t know why, but it bothers her, probably because he strikes her as extremely unpredictable and reckless. Metaphorical storm clouds gather in the air around her, summoned by the Devil's bad mood.

“The woman he’s talking about, the one he killed… I saw her after she died, among Hell's newest arrivals. Bad decisions, violent relationships, substance abuse… Guilt, guilt, guilt. And he might not even follow her,” Lucifer scoffs, his voice almost choked. “After what he did to her, and… to you.”

Chloe’s throat feels dry. The idea of discussing the fate of someone’s soul so casually makes her shiver. But after all, she knows who she’s talking to. Yet as she replays what Lucifer just said in her head, there is a meaning behind his words that she finds surprising.

“You mean… you’re not the one deciding?” she asks cautiously, feeling like she’s breaking some sort of unspoken boundary. “You’re not the one who does the sentencing?”

Lucifer chuckles, but there is no humor in it. “Free will is a powerful thing, Detective, but you may find it’s also a double-edged sword. Our Jimmy Barnes here will get to decide whether he feels guilty or not, and therefore seal his own fate. Marvellous, isn’t it? The power you humans have been granted without even knowing it?”

 _You humans_ , so… not him. Chloe reminds herself to do a bit of research on the subject once Lucifer will leave her alone again at some point during the day, or just for the night.

His words about free will cut deep into her. Because even knowing what it meant, she made the choice to be saved. She could have refused, died and gone to Heaven, possibly. She gave Lucifer a power he wouldn’t have had otherwise, offering a soul that wouldn’t have been his to take. She’s a fool.

Beyond the glass, Barnes doesn’t spare insults and curses for Chloe, either. She should be dead, he says. She poked where she shouldn’t have. She ruined a perfect plan, destroyed his life, stupid cop-bitch and this and that; the usual, nothing to get too mad about. Nothing new, really.

“Why don’t you let me show myself to him, Detective?” Lucifer whispers, a terrifying edge to his tone, almost murderous. “Just say the word and I'll leave my throne for real, if only for a moment. Let me punish him for this, just in case I don’t get to see him again down below.”

Is he… is he really asking her? Asking for her permission? Chloe wonders, for the very first time, if _she_ is actually the one holding the chain and not the other way around; if Lucifer wants the green light from her out of courtesy, or because he truly needs it.

Is her soul bound to the Devil, or is Lucifer her Devil on a leash?

“I…” she hesitates, thinking carefully. _Let me show myself to him_ , he said. _Let me punish him_.

Red eyes. A red face. A monster in the flesh. And it’s up to her to rein him in.

“I don’t want you to,” she concludes.

Lucifer takes a sharp intake of breath. He looks… disappointed, for a moment, before something in Chloe’s expression gives him pause. Her fear, probably. Her dread at the idea of someone else, no matter how guilty, being subjected to that sight.

“I scared you,” he realizes out loud. He looks hurt by the idea. It’s not a good look on him. “I… I hope you’ll accept my sincerest apologies, then. I didn’t know who had summoned me when I appeared the first time, and the people who do it intentionally certainly don’t deserve to enjoy my better side. You… you didn’t deserve that, Chloe.”

It’s the first time he says her name, as if trying to make his words more meaningful, to better get his point across. The Devil, apologizing to her. Chloe feels speechless.

“If you didn’t do it on purpose, then you have nothing to apologize for,” she replies quietly, mentally cursing at herself almost immediately.

What is she doing, falling for such easy tricks? Of course he would say he didn’t mean to. Of course he would lie to seduce her, to tempt her, to get her to lower her defenses. He’s the snake of the Garden, and she’s a modern-day Eve, but just as naïve and gullible as the first.

And yet, when Satan tentatively smiles at her, Chloe finds herself smiling back.

~🔗~

In the next few days, Lucifer comes and goes as he pleases, turning up at her side at random moments. Thankfully, Chloe slowly learns to recognize the telltale pull of the chain at her wrist, the signal of his reappearance from the underworld he rules over.

Still, her improving skill doesn’t help her when one morning, instead of waiting for her outside her bedroom door, Lucifer is “late” and materializes out of thin air on the passenger seat as she drives. Chloe screams, the car dangerously veering toward the middle of the road before she regains control of it.

“Jesus!” she exclaims, a hand over her chest as she catches her breath.

“Sorry, just me, darling,” Lucifer quips, crossing his legs – albeit with difficulty – and showing absolutely zero remorse at the fact that he could have gotten her killed. After all, it would have only sped up the process, Chloe realizes dumbly.

“I will have to tie a bell around your neck,” she jokes just the same, chasing that grim thought away.

When they are alone, she finds she actually likes the light banter between them, which means she’s probably going insane. But maybe, somehow, she can achieve a balance, and learn to coexist with her personal ghost who is technically not a ghost, but the owner of her very soul.

“Oooh, kinky,” Lucifer replies in kind, his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. “I’m open to all sorts of foreplay, dear, but seriously, you already have me in a collar and chain. To be quite honest with you, I'm in a constant state of mild arousal as it is.”

“Gross,” Chloe comments, shaking her head. If she glances down at his crotch to inquire about the truthfulness of his statement (which thanks to the tight leather proves to be, indeed, accurate), it’s only out of curiosity, of course. She can’t have certain thoughts about the Devil. She already gave him the most important thing she owns, for crying out loud.

“Well, gross or not, it’s true. I never lie. You’re a very competent individual, Detective, and I love me a woman who knows how to boss me around.”

They’re entering into dangerous territory, so Chloe clings to the first lifeline she sees, floating in the sea of his lecherous words.

“You never lie?”

“Never.”

Which could be a lie in itself, of course. She sighs internally. For a while, they both stay silent.

“First day back in the field today?” Lucifer asks her, sounding genuinely curious and impressed as he takes in the gun and badge at her hip. “I can’t wait to see the mighty Detective Decker at work.”

Chloe gives him a small smile, letting him know she accepted the compliment. It’s good to have someone acknowledge she’s good at something, good at what she does; no matter who that someone happens to be. How desperate for praise is she, though, when a compliment from Satan might be the highlight of her day?

And how crazy is she, when once at the crime scene, his inappropriate commentary tears another smile out of her?

“It’s too bad only you can sense me,” he muses as Chloe questions yet another attendee of the party after which the murder occurred, the victim a young woman strangled and thrown into the pool of a famous quarterback’s villa. “Otherwise I would have asked every single one of these greedy social climbers what they truly desire. Imagine your closure rate with a skill like that at your disposal, Detective.”

Chloe waits until she’s alone in front of a glass desk covered in sparkly purses, while her middle-aged, useless partner is busy being inappropriate with a scantily-clad witness, to reply.

“You mean, imagine us working together? Sure. Completely legit. Not weird at all.”

“Come now, you _know_ it would be fun. A crime-solving Devil. I quite like the sound of that.”

Chloe finally finds the victim's purse and rummages in it until she finds the woman's driver license. She gestures for an officer to come closer and gives it to him to run it through the system, then turns back to look at Lucifer.

What he just said doesn’t really surprise her: how else would he offer his infamous deals? Of course he can get people to tell him what they want but don’t have the courage to seek for themselves; the only reason he didn’t do with her was because what she needed from him was already obvious, but with a long life ahead in his company, she realizes she’s not actually safe from it, either.

“Lucifer, I need you to promise me something,” she says, turning serious. Oddly enough, the Devil seems to listen to her, so she might as well gain something out of it: preserve what is left of her independence, her freedom.

Lucifer looks surprised, his eyebrows raised questioningly. “Yes?”

“Promise me you'll never do that to me.”

His gaze is serious, but not angry. If Chloe had to pinpoint it, she would actually describe it as incredibly sad.

“You think I'd use it against you?”

She holds his stare, though she probably shouldn’t. “Isn’t that what you do?”

The Devil flinches. The blunt truth seems to hurt him, somehow. Chloe realizes she’s being dumb in antagonizing him so openly, but he asked her. Can he revoke his part of the deal and reverse the healing he performed on her? Is she playing with fire, with her own life, every time she talks to him?

“I ask people their desires to fulfill them, not to blackmail,” he snaps. “I simply thought it could have been useful to coax the truth out of the guilty with a gentle nudge, when necessary. But fear not, Detective. After all, you are not guilty of anything.”

And with that, he takes a step back, spreads his wings, and leaves.

~🔗~

He doesn’t reappear for a couple of days. She offended him, Chloe realizes. And she doesn’t really know how to feel about it.

Should she actually show more gratitude to him? No matter the price, he saved her life. She still doesn’t understand what he gets out of following her around, and this does seem like a big life change (as of now, even more than her future, inevitable damnation), but at least she still has a _life_ to change.

Her research on him, carried out on her tablet after tucking Trixie into bed one night, proves confusing and mostly inconclusive. Religion, history and folklore certainly don’t paint a good picture of him, sometimes literally: goat head and legs, horns and a tail, a serpent or dragon body, multiple ugly faces. The most beautiful angel of Heaven, twisted into something monstrous by his own pride and defiance, punished and cast out and hell-bent on tempting humans to spread Evil against the Word of his hated Father.

She replays in her head the image of his face, his human-looking face, as he crouched over her in seemingly genuine concern. She remembers the heated way he said _I won’t let you_ , and the care with which he put one of his feathers on her wound.

How can a being capable of so much good also be so evil? Did she actually force his hand, binding him to make an unwanted deal with her reckless last thought? He said she summoned him. It’s not like he was lurking around in the shadows of a recording studio waiting for someone to get shot and pray for a second chance.

Chloe looks down at the silver band around her wrist and thinks of the one around Lucifer’s neck, and of the temporarily invisible chain that binds them together. She wonders what he’s up to, when he’s gone. She wonders if keeping him here, tied to her, is somehow unkind to him, although he seems to enjoy the human world and clearly has the freedom to come and go, “visiting” her with his mind at will.

But does her soul actually call him _back_ , like a siren perched on a rock in the sea? And is she putting the world in danger by keeping the Devil around for longer than he would normally stay?

She should call an exorcist, maybe, or some kind of expert of the esoteric. She always thought them to be charlatans, but at this point, perhaps they’re onto something. Still, it would put her on the spot, attract attention she simply doesn’t want. Especially if they don’t believe her, it could backfire spectacularly: after all, since no one else can see Lucifer, what do a weird bracelet and tattoo actually prove?

And the truth is, Lucifer is an enigma Chloe wants to solve on her own. Maybe she’s just too used to it. Doing things alone.

In the end, he does come back one night, as she browses through online websites about German legends. Chloe luckily has the time to turn off the screen before he sees it, and the reason why speaks volumes: instead of appearing at her side as usual, Lucifer purposefully walks the length of the house to reach her, giving her time to notice the presence and pull of the silver chain at her wrist, shortening as he approaches. A kindness, to her.

He wears no coat tonight, just a shirt that unusually seems woven more from iron than from blood, tucked inside his usual leather trousers; and on his head, there is no hellish crown. He looks more normal, if maybe a bit on the transgressive side, and she wonders if this is a kindness as well. She dreads to find out it is.

Lucifer comes to sit on the couch next to her, instead of choosing the other one like last time. They are not quite touching, but the proximity is enough to make him seem more real than ever before. The couch dips under his weight, and Chloe distantly wonders what it would look like to other people’s eyes. Probably pristine and untouched, she supposes at first, then doubts herself: after all, he drank wine in her presence, and she later had to put the glass away. Note to self: don’t let him touch stuff in front of others, or they will think her house is haunted.

As for _feeling_ his touch, though, she assumes that is still reserved to her only, just like she’s the only one hearing and seeing him: she was the one he healed, and he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. At the same time, as he explained to her, Lucifer isn’t really here. It’s all a big sensory hallucination, for lack of a better expression, but forgetting it is extremely easy.

“Did you hand in your resignation?” Chloe teases him, vaguely gesturing at his crownless head. The silence of the night makes her feel comfortable, whereas a few days ago, it suffocated her, making her feel trapped with him with no one else to talk to and escape his attentions.

“Oh, this?” He points at his hair, styled in a gentle, elegant wave. “No, I wish. I just made some arrangements for my right-hand demon to fill in for me while I'm ‘distracted’, so to speak, and well… she wouldn’t do it unless I gave her the crown to wear. Women, am I right? They just _love_ their jewelry. Hell-born ones included, apparently.”

His sarcasm has something missing, a spark that quite simply isn’t there. It shows a weariness about him Chloe didn’t notice before. A general sense of defeat.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back,” she tells him, almost compelled to be as honest as he’s being with her. But did she _hope_ he wouldn’t return?

Definitely. Probably. Maybe. She’s not sure. Ugh.

Lucifer plays nervously with the ring around his finger, another sign of uneasiness usually masked by a regal façade.

“I came back because I realized I might have been too harsh on you, Detective,” he says slowly and with intent, as if he prepared a whole speech to deliver. Something dangerously resembling butterflies flutters in Chloe’s stomach at the thought that he might have. “I owe you the benefit of the doubt, especially considering how we met. I know you have a terrible opinion of me, but it’s not your fault. Father made sure of that. So please, if there is anything you want to ask me, just… ask away, and I will answer. As I hope you recall, the Devil doesn’t lie.”

The flood of questions swirling in her mind almost spills over. Almost. _Why are you here? What do you want from me? What do you get out of this? What will happen to me when my time will come?_

_Why are you here?_

But in the end, Chloe finds she lacks the courage. The courage to come forward and possibly find out he means absolutely no harm to her or anyone, not until she’s living. The courage to admit she hopes that’s the case.

She takes the remote from the low table in front of her and turns on the TV.

“Wanna watch with me for a while?”

~🔗~

It’s been two months now, and Chloe has gotten used to the Devil on her shoulder (or more accurately, behind it) as well as it could be expected of her. On his part, Lucifer has also made adjustments: nice ones, for her own benefit. No disturbing during quality time with Trixie (this one clearly for _his_ benefit as well); no interrupting when Chloe is deeply concentrated on work, trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together, unless he has something relevant to say; no stealing drugs from evidence (this only after she caught him red-handed, or better, _white_ -handed in the storage room by following the chain through the station).

His contribution on the job has actually proven useful, too: not that surprisingly, the Devil seems to be acquainted with the desires that drive people to commit sin, even when he can’t force those same desires out of them with the power he claims to have. Chloe learns to ignore him when she needs to (comments about women she’s interviewing, or suspects that remind him of famous villains he knows personally) and to recognize and exploit good insight from him, moving to an isolated corner or room to ask him to elaborate further.

He even shows his worth in helping her reevaluate the one case that has been plaguing her reputation, leading her to realize someone else must have been at the scene, a gym in Palmetto Street, to shoot the cop who was just taken off life support and that she always accused of corruption for being there to get bribed by a drug dealer (who died there instead). But in the absence of anything to prove it, aside from a hidden passage that might have been used, Chloe ends up closing the investigation anyway, pressured by the station and the cop's family. Still, Lucifer’s support is a comfort, especially when she has no one else’s to count on.

It becomes a weird… partnership, so to speak, alongside the stale and merely professional real one the force requires of her. It’s nice to have another set of eyes always there to notice things she might have missed or not given the right consideration. And in time, Chloe forgets or stops caring about the blazing red hiding in those same eyes.

That is, until she snaps. Well, until _he_ snaps, and she promptly follows suit.

It’s been a long day, and it amounted to nothing. Nothing but a headache, a ton of paperwork and a long tirade from the lieutenant. Nothing but frustration and disappointment. So, Chloe wants to sleep. Desperately. Too bad Lucifer just won’t leave.

“This is preposterous! No, scratch that, this is a bloody travesty!” he rages as he paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of Chloe’s bed while she sits on the edge with her head in her hands. “How could they just let him go like that?”

They have gone through this, of course. At the station, and in the car. “Powerful lawyers go a long way, I told you. They always find some loophole, or pay someone on the inside to have evidence disappear. I'll try to figure something out, but it doesn’t look good. We don’t always win. This is one of those times.”

Lucifer stops pacing and looks at her as if she’s crazy. Well, it’s probably not that far from the truth.

“And that’s it? He gets to walk free without consequences? Where is the justice in that? Where is the punishment?”

She sighs. “Justice–well, _human_ justice is imperfect, Lucifer, because _we_ are.” _And to be fair, the celestial one doesn’t seem that efficient either._ “What do you want me to say? Please, I just need to–”

“Tell me, Detective, what is the bloody point of your dreadful job if murderers still go unpunished, mm?” he cuts her off, furious. “What is the bloody point of wasting your days chasing pieces of garbage up and down this _City of Angels_ if in the end, it counts for nothing? Some of them might not even go to Hell, and you don’t even get to bring Hell to _them_? Well, not on my watch! I shall find that pitiful waste of polluted air and show him–”

“You won’t do _anything_!” Chloe shouts, standing up abruptly. It’s a good thing Trixie is at Dan’s, so she doesn’t have to worry about being loud. “I said I’ll take care of it! I lay down the law here on Earth, not _you_!”

The fact that she just screamed in the Devil’s face doesn’t even register. Chloe is _mad_ at him. Mad at being reminded of who he is when she was just starting to forget, or at least learn how to live with it. Mad at him for mentioning Hell so damn casually when he knows it’s where she’ll end up, regardless of her guilt, because she doomed herself with her own hands.

“But Detective, why not take advantage of the fact that I'm here to deliver–”

“Yeah, and while we’re at it, why _are_ you here anyway? Why are you–” Chloe makes a choked noise, raking a hand through her hair, “Why are you torturing me like this, following me, throwing opinions at me, asking me to _allow_ you to terrorize civilians for your own amusement? Was my soul not enough for you? What else do you _want_ from me?”

Well, fuck.

Chloe is panting by the time she’s done. She feels drained, but vibrating with a nervous energy she can’t shake off. The cat is out of the bag, and there probably is no going back to the way things were before. But who is she kidding – ever since being saved by the Devil and bound to him, Chloe has been living in an alternate reality that has nothing to do with how her life used to be.

The hurt on Lucifer’s face burns like fire, cuts like steel. But Chloe wants him to say it. Now that she finally managed to ask, she wants to hear him _say_ it.

_Why are you here?_

“Did it ever occur to you, Detective, that the answer might simply be _nothing_?” Lucifer replies, tone venomous in his desperation. “That there is nothing I'll take from you except for what you'll willingly give?”

His eyes shoot daggers at her, and she instinctively takes a step back. Does he mean that she gave her soul willingly, so that can’t count as taking, either? In a way, he’s right. But what about now?

“You say I'm torturing you,” he scoffs, and once again, the temperature in the room starts to rise. “Do you want to know what _real_ torture is, Detective? It’s the one I inflict on others thinking it will get me anywhere with a Father who simply couldn’t care less. It’s the idea of being blamed for everyone's sins and misdeeds as if I spend my days perched on their shoulders, whispering temptation in their ears. It’s being shot down from the sky like a bloody cannonball for your own failure, and spending eons staring at it in the mirror until you end up believing you deserved it, because there’s a good chance you did.”

A pause. “So if spending time with me is equal to _torture_ to you, just… say no more, Detective. I'll be on my merry way.”

He shrugs, spreads his wings, and then–

“Don’t.”

Wait, what is she doing? This is her chance to get rid of him. To be free, at least until her death. What is she _doing_?

“Don’t, please. Don’t leave.”

Chloe looks down to realize she just gripped his wrist. She never did before. She actually never touched him in general, not after the first time they met, when she accepted his help to get up from the floor of the studio. But that was different. _This_ is different. _She_ is different.

Is he?

Lucifer seems just as shocked by the contact. Chloe quickly lets go of him, yet the look of surprise lingers on his face.

“I'm sorry,” she tells him. “About everything you said. I’m sorry.”

Because somehow, she believes him. There is no trick here, no trap to fall into. He’s the one who exposed himself. He’s the one bare before her. For the first time, the collar around his neck makes him look as vulnerable as she has always felt.

For the first time, the King of Hell is at her mercy, and Chloe finds she’s a merciful queen.

“Stay.”

And he does.


	3. Chapter 3

He sleeps on the armchair in the corner that night, the chain dangling from Chloe’s arm, outstretched past the edge of the mattress toward him. Almost like a watchdog, she realizes in the morning, when she wakes up to find him still asleep, as uncomfortable as ever with his impossibly long limbs but not complaining once. The chain stretches as Chloe leaves the bed, gathers clothes for the day, goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get dressed.

Seeing him there through it all, snoring softly with his mouth comically parted and his hair mussed, makes an old ache come to life in her chest: the ache for someone steady, someone to count on, to cling to at night and find there in the morning.

He’s not that person, though. He’s the Devil. But at least, he’s not a monster in the closet she’s supposed to be scared of, praying her dreams won’t turn into nightmares. Because they don’t, anymore. If anything, he’s a monster she tamed, keeping him from venting his anger (as righteous as it might have been) against others. He’s almost her responsibility. Another one in a long list, but she brought this on herself.

Once she’s dressed, Chloe thinks of tugging on the chain to wake him, but since his end is connected to his neck, it feels demeaning. Maybe she should let him sleep, she reasons. Will the chain stretch and bend indefinitely, or will she end up pulling him and dragging him on the asphalt behind her car? And will that result in any real pain for him, down below where his physical body is? She decides she doesn’t want to find out.

She dares to touch him again, this time brushing a few locks of hair away from his forehead. Her hand trembles as she does so. It feels like yet another wall she’s tearing down, another boundary she’s crossing, and she doesn’t know what will come next.

When she calls his name and Lucifer starts to stir, she pulls her hand back, and he fails to notice it was ever there.

“I have to go to work,” she tells him apologetically – and it’s so easy and domestic that she almost wants to slap herself, because seriously.

Lucifer gives her a dopey smile, then stretches like a cat, arms above his head and legs toward the floor.

“And I think I should go check on Mazikeen,” he replies grumpily. The demon he told her about, Chloe assumes; the one keeping the place running while his mind is preoccupied. “A whole night on Earth is a long time in Hell. Better make sure she didn’t tear it all down, or Dad save us, redecorate. Will you be fine without me for the day, Detective?”

Chloe gives him a look. “You know I was already solving murders before you came along, right?”

He arches an eyebrow. “Of course, but less effectively? And certainly having way less fun, I can assure you.”

“You give yourself too much credit.”

He shoots her a playful, challenging look, but doesn’t contradict her. It’s rare for him to give up and not claim the last word in a banter, so it’s also very rewarding.

“I'll come back as soon as I can,” he tells her, then flies down to his kingdom of swirling ashes.

As the day goes by, Chloe finds herself looking at where the chain would be only to realize it’s missing. She used to feel like a prisoner, but now the restraint is more like the sign of a mutual bond. Neither of them is holding the other hostage. In a way, they are each other’s keepers.

And yes, her soul still belongs to the Devil, this she has not forgotten. But from the way he speaks, she has the feeling he never truly wanted it. She needs to accept that it was a gift she gave, a desperate appeal that begged to be answered. She also needs to acknowledge that he was the only one who _did_ answer it.

Sure, it was because of some weird voodoo magic connected to her medallion, but still. God and angels exist, and they let her strike a deal with the Devil instead of helping her. _Dear Old Dad and His silly rules._

Good, sensible rules, to be sure. Imagine saving every single person who prays for mercy when the time is near – no one would ever die. But in this, Chloe allows herself to be a bit selfish. That wasn’t her time. She was not done, not by a long shot. And every time she gets to see her daughter, she feels grateful, not cursed. Maybe, there will be this to comfort her in damnation.

Maybe, Lucifer himself will be a kinder torturer than she might have originally thought.

It’s night again, when he comes back. Late night. The dead of night. Meaning, Chloe actually went to sleep thinking she wouldn’t see him. Her arm gets dragged away from where she was letting it rest on her face, and she stirs immediately, her sleep light to be ready to answer Trixie’s cries when she has nightmares, and hear her phone ring for any sort of emergency.

The moonlight streaming in through her bedroom window illuminates the contours of Lucifer’s form, standing still by the door. Chloe sleepily rubs at her eyes and reaches out to turn on the lamp on the nightstand and see him properly.

“What happened?” she asks as soon as she does.

Lucifer is wearing his crown again, but that isn’t what caught her attention. There are bruises all over his face: on his cheekbones, one of his eyebrows, his chin. His lower lip is split, the cut bloody. He’s never looked more human than in this moment, as if he just stepped out of a bar fight. But Chloe knows that can’t be the case.

“Oh, just a silly disagreement between brothers,” he deflects, leaning against the door and staring out the window. “You should have seen the other guy.”

Chloe sits up on the bed. She can see blood on his knuckles, too, but doesn’t know whether it’s his own or his… brother’s. Michael? How many of them are there? It doesn’t really matter right now.

“What was the fight about?”

Lucifer’s jaw tenses. His anger thickens the air, makes the room feel smaller. In his eyes, a flicker of red lights up the dark for the duration of a heartbeat, then fades away.

“Apparently you can’t appoint a demon to temporarily rule in your place without causing a major angelic intervention,” he says without looking at her. “Ridiculous. I don’t even know what he has to complain about. It’s not like I'm actually going anywhere or _doing_ anything. He doesn’t even have to come fetch me from a pile of humans as he used to, and I know the feathered prick hated that.”

She snorts, “Is that what you usually do when you’re physically here?”

He seems grateful for the sudden shift in the tone of the conversation, for a chance to boast. “Oh, yes, Detective. My previous visits topside always involved a lot more bodies than this and, well,” he looks down at the silver thread that binds them together, “sometimes a lot more chains.”

Orgies with the Devil, then, and BDSM. Someone out there truly embodies the concept of “blissful ignorance”. Chloe stares at him, slowly processing it all.

“So what changed now?”

_Why are you here?_

Lucifer finally looks at her. His anger has now been reduced to embers, its glow slowly lessening in the night.

“I told you, Detective. I won’t take anything from you. I find your company to be more fulfilling than… maybe all my previous visits combined.”

Chloe grips the sheets under the covers where he can’t see her hands. The meaning behind his answer leaves her breathless, makes her feel stupid and mean.

Lucifer is lonely. He’s _lonely._

And God, she is, too.

“You look like you need rest,” she hears herself say, shocked by where her train of thought is going. Lucifer looks endeared by the sentiment, his face breaking in a small but powerful smile.

“You might be right. Go back to sleep then, I'll be here,” he says as he walks toward the armchair where he slept last night.

Chloe grabs the chain with the hand that isn’t bound to it and pulls, catching his attention. Lucifer turns toward her, puzzled. Without saying anything, she lifts the covers on the empty side of the bed and leaves them that way, open in invitation, before scooting down to settle under them once again. She lies on her side, her cheek on the pillow, to watch what he will do, feeling as if she's observing a wild animal that was just offered food from a stranger and doesn’t know how to react.

Lucifer hesitates, one thousand emotions swimming in his eyes. Chloe realizes only now how uncomfortable his clothes must be to sleep in, but lending him something Dan might have left behind would give the whole act a sense of familiarity and closeness she doesn’t want to deal with. Seeing him like this, with his hellish crown and his leather clothes, helps her to separate him from reality, to see him as something foreign, something other. Something that doesn’t belong in the flow of her daily routine.

If she lets him step into her life as something more than a ghost, a spirit, a fragment of her imagination, she’s not sure she’ll be able to stop herself from wanting more. She’s already asking too much.

But Lucifer doesn’t say anything about it, for which Chloe is grateful. He simply walks to the bed, sits on the edge and takes off his boots, before removing the crown from his head and placing it on the nightstand – a painful, unintentional mockery of a partner taking off his glasses for the night, a stark reminder of everything he’s not. Then he scoots back toward the headboard, sits against it and looks down at her, silent and still.

The light from the nightlamp makes all the cuts and bruises stand out from his pale skin, like dark ink stains on a white piece of paper. It’s almost unfair, how gorgeous he still looks. And after what she’s read about him, Chloe doesn’t have a hard time believing he’s always looked this way, without any deception needed.

He’s always been beautiful. But he hasn’t always been ugly, like he was when they first met.

_Torture is being shot down from the sky like a bloody cannonball for your own failure, and spending eons staring at it in the mirror until you end up believing you deserved it, because there’s a good chance you did._

It was the Fall that burned him, or maybe he did it to himself, she can’t be sure. All she knows is that she wishes he didn’t have to suffer any more pain.

Eventually, the Devil finds the courage to slide down the mattress and turn on his side, facing her. Their hands rest between them, almost touching but not really, the chain reduced to a few links now that her wristband and his collar are so close to each other. There is so much intensity in the air that Chloe can’t find it in herself to turn around and turn off the lamp, so she doesn’t.

Lucifer stares into her eyes, then lets his gaze wander, but with a shyness she didn’t expect; a reverence that doesn’t make her squirm as she might have thought, because he’s clearly more on edge than she is.

There is no hint of his usual boldness, no teasing, no innuendos spilling from his lips or written on his face. He just drinks her in, eyes travelling down her neck and stopping at her collarbone, no further; staring intently at the small section of the star-shaped mark that is visible this way, partially revealed by her loose top.

In a surge of desire, a craving for contact and closeness Chloe barely suppresses, she wishes he'd reach out and touch it with his fingertips, signing his own name on her skin, claiming ownership of it. Of her.

After all, isn’t she already his?

In the end, she settles for looking at him until he falls asleep, dark eyelashes slowly drooping closed, his tense, tired body relaxing and melting next to hers. Then she looks at him some more, watching him sleep.

 _I'll only break the sanctity of your bedroom at your request, Detective,_ he said that first day. And although he might have stepped in it without her verbally agreeing to it, he didn’t make any jokes or assumptions about joining her in her bed, and made no move to take it any further. This is, once again, something she gave to him.

Chloe wonders what else she’ll end up giving him before surrendering her soul to the flames.

~🔗~

It’s Sunday morning when she wakes, so she decides to let him sleep, letting the chain magically cut its way through doors, walls and furniture as she moves through the house. With the Devil in her bed, she feels safer than she has in a while, and she’s okay with it.

Dan comes to drop Trixie off for breakfast and go surfing with some friends. Chloe jumps at the opportunity to spend time with her little monkey, eating with her as her daughter tells her about the Saturday she spent with her father at the zoo.

When Lucifer appears from behind the corner, his hair is all over the place, almost childishly messy under the feathers of the crown he retrieved from the nightstand; but the injuries on his face seem way better – the proof of some sort of super-fast celestial healing taking place in Hell, Chloe figures.

She acknowledges his presence with a nod, and he nods back, intent on not disturbing her as she eagerly listens to Trixie’s enthusiastic report. Then he leans against the kitchen counter near the entrance and makes a few silent gestures to ask her if she has a cigarette and a lighter. Chloe shakes her head minutely, suppressing a laugh, because technically _he_ is allowed to speak, even though she can’t use words to reply.

Lucifer sighs and looks around, as if waiting for a sudden revelation. When it arrives, he taps the side of his nose with his index finger, then wiggles his eyebrows with a smile of manic glee. This time, Chloe glares at him, and he claps his hands on his thighs, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

Of course he would ask for cocaine in the middle of her kitchen on a Sunday, with her daughter present. The Devil is just that ridiculous, but no holy book will ever tell you that.

When breakfast is done, Trixie asks to watch cartoons, so Chloe accompanies her to the couch and lets her turn on the TV and choose the channel. Lucifer trails behind them quietly, timidly, scared of intruding. Another thing the Bible failed to mention: the Devil knows his manners (when it suits him) and can be just as shy as a little boy.

Not that long ago, Chloe would have told him to give them privacy. Today, she silently glances at the spot next to her and stares at him until he gets the hint and joins them. When half an hour later Trixie leaves to go to the bathroom, Chloe gathers her thoughts for a moment and then decides to take the opportunity to speak.

“This is why I did it, you know,” she reveals in a soft voice, smiling to herself. “This is why I prayed. To be able to see her again. And… no matter the price, you made it possible. I don’t think I've ever said it, so… thank you, Lucifer. I don’t want to blame you anymore. I am grateful. No matter what will happen to me, no matter what you are, I am _grateful._ ”

Lucifer looks taken aback, his mouth parted in surprise. “Detective,” he starts, “there’s–there’s something I need to–”

“Turn the volume up, mommy!” Trixie bellows as she runs back in from the bathroom, flopping down on the couch and kicking her feet in the air. “I love this song!”

Chloe obliges, then turns back to Lucifer once Trixie is properly distracted. But for some reason, he refuses to meet her gaze for the rest of the morning, and with her daughter present, she can’t even ask him to.

When lunch time approaches, Chloe busies herself in the kitchen, with Trixie mixing salad leaves in a bowl next to her, standing on a stool. She loses track of Lucifer for a few minutes, but it’s enough.

He’s gone.

~🔗~

He doesn’t come back.

One day turns to two, then three. One week also turns to two, then three, until Chloe frankly loses track of time. She assumes he had another fight with his brother, probably with permanent consequences. She assumes that maybe, he was forced not to seek her out again, and that when he disappeared from her house it was because someone startled him “awake” in Hell, so he couldn’t even say goodbye.

But she also takes into consideration that what she said might have overwhelmed him, for some reason. She thought he would appreciate her thanking him, but the way he looked, and what he started to say… What _did_ he want to say?

Mindless of that, life resumes, but it feels surreal. The silver band is still there. The Devil’s mark is still there. And Chloe hates to think there might be a Satan-shaped hole in her routine, but that’s what it feels like.

Cases are boring again – okay, not really boring, but… less exciting for sure. She hates this, too: that he was right, that solving murders _is_ way less fun without him. Was meeting him actually a _good_ thing, at the end of the day? But how can it be? He was her ticket to a new life, but also to Hell; a kingdom its ruler himself seems to despise, jumping at every opportunity to escape it for a while.

Jumping at every opportunity to… be with her. In her company. Just her company, instead of looking for pleasure in someone else’s arms.

Chloe mourns for his loneliness. Thinking she’ll never see him again, not until he'll come to collect her soul, she decides to remember him fondly, or at least give him the benefit of the doubt, as he did with her. She’ll have the whole of eternity to hate him and curse him after she dies. She doesn’t want to hate him now, while she enjoys the life he made possible.

She’s sure there are many things she’s purposefully ignoring. He even mentioned torturing others, and she didn’t bat an eye. But there is no point in pretending he is anything different than what he is: a prince fallen from grace, dwelling in the darkness after being shunned from the light. And there is no point in refusing to admit, at least now that she’s alone, that she felt affection for him, that she even considered him a friend.

One evening, she finds herself thinking of the stars some say he made. She thinks of the Heaven he was banned from, and that she won’t get to see either. And so she grabs her car keys, asks a neighbor to babysit Trixie for a few hours, and drives to the beach.

Once there, Chloe parks and walks almost all the way to the water. She stands there and watches the sun set, watches the stars twinkle to life in the growing darkness of the sky. Alone at last. Alone again.

Alone.

When something pulls at her wrist, she almost jumps as she used to, grown once again unaccustomed to the signs of Lucifer’s arrival after his prolonged absence. She turns to find him there next to her as if he never left, staring at her with a reverence that can only come from centuries, no, millennia of existence. He looks as regal as he did that first day, the cool breeze caressing the dark locks of hair catching between the feathers of his hellish crown.

“Hi,” Chloe greets him tentatively, unable to fully judge what mood he’s in.

“Hello, Detective,” Lucifer replies with his now customary greeting, clinging to her title in almost childish fascination. “Star-gazing, are we? I wonder why.”

Chloe chuckles, allowing him to be smug, but doesn’t confirm his suspicion. She’s not sure she’s ready to give this power to him: the knowledge of how she feels about him.

“You took your sweet time this time around,” she answers instead, trying to sound casual. “Trouble in, well, Hell?”

She expects him to laugh or smile, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as they do. Instead, his expression turns sad, so sad it’s almost scary.

“More trouble than you can possibly imagine,” he tells her with finality. “That’s why I had to leave for a while, and why I can’t stay here anymore. I have to go back. Permanently or, well, for a very long time, at least. The demons of Hell, they… they don’t accept or forgive weakness, and these ‘trips’ of mine… that’s what they are, to them. They have made them bolder, led them to think they can easily defy me. There have been attempts at doing things I can’t allow, for everyone’s safety. Hell needs its angel king, and as my brother so kindly reminded me, there is no one else but me. I only came to say goodbye.”

There are no new bruises on his skin, but he looks tired. Chloe wonders if he’s been fighting the whole time he’s been away, getting hurt and healing in a constant loop to try and dominate his subjects. Fighting for a chance to keep coming back, and losing. Just for her? For mankind in general? For the freedom to go where he pleases?

It doesn’t really matter at this point, but there is something else she has to know. A confirmation she needs in order to put a gnawing doubt to rest.

“This means I'll see you when I… die?” she whispers, holding her breath as she waits. The pained look Lucifer gives her breaks her heart.

“Oh, Detective. You still don't get it, do you?” he answers vehemently as he steps closer, his boots crunching on the sand. “Your soul was never mine to take.”

Chloe’s heart glues itself back together, then skips a beat. They are the only two people on the beach. They might as well be the only two people in the whole world.

“But you said… you said my soul will end up in Hell, when it’s ready for it. You said you never lie.”

Lucifer takes her hand. Chloe lets him.

“Yes, I did. And it was no lie. Because the truth is… Chloe, your soul will never be deserving of Hell. Never. And if by some idiotic glitch in the system I'll ever see it down below, I'll storm the gates of Heaven to take it where it belongs. I'll tear the Silver City apart brick by bloody brick, for you. Don’t you see it? Don’t you know it by now?”

Chloe’s eyes fill with tears, but she pushes them back. Her head is spinning. She still doesn’t understand, not really.

“All the times I talked about my soul, you never contradicted me. You… you let me believe it was yours. Why?” she asks him, because despite everything he just said, the deception hurts. Why did he let her get to such a conclusion, let it fester in her heart?

Lucifer looks down at the ground, ashamed. Chloe squeezes his hand to encourage him. Traffic is distant here, and in this moment of silence, all she can hear is the sound of the crashing waves.

“To spend more time with you,” Lucifer says eventually, staring back into her eyes with a self-deprecating smile. “I let you think that was the case, so you wouldn’t question my presence. Because I… I didn’t want to stay away. From you. I admit it started as a game, as an excuse to be here, but… it became more. You– _you_ are more, more than anyone I have ever met. And believe me, I have met a _lot_ of people.”

Chloe scoffs, trying not to choke on her own emotions. “I'm just a human, Lucifer. A nobody. I'm nothing compared to you.”

Lucifer lifts his free hand to cup her cheek. His thumb brushes along her cheekbone, before his large, solid hand settles behind her ear.

“That’s simply not true. You deserve everything, and you shall have it. You deserve someone who will _give_ you everything, and I hope you’ll find them. Because you, Detective, are selfless to a _nauseating_ degree.”

Chloe laughs, rolling her eyes at him.

“You always put your daughter first, even though the ungrateful urchin does nothing to contribute to the bills, so you deserve someone worthy of that grace. Someone who knows that every crime scene breaks your heart, even though you'd never admit it. Someone who actually appreciates your impossibly boring middle name, _Jane_.”

“Wait, how do you even know that?!”

“I thought I'd find handcuffs in your bag to try and tickle your kinky side, and I stumbled upon your wallet. Not important. Let’s not get hung up on the technicalities, love, shall we?”

“Right, sorry,” she giggles. “Please, continue.”

Lucifer’s eyes shine like his stars as he pauses to look at her. Chloe distantly realizes how weird this scene must look from the outside, her face tilted up toward an invisible presence, her hand grasping air. She finds she doesn’t really care.

“More importantly, Detective, you deserve someone as good as you, because… you're special. And if I could, I would spend my whole bloody lifetime pestering you to try and convince you that I'm worth it, even though I’m not.”

Chloe doesn’t know what to say. All she can do is mirror him, raising her own free hand to cup his stubbled cheek, but she stops in mid-air before coming in contact with his skin. She looks at the silver band around her wrist, now in perfect view, and takes a step back, causing a flicker of disappointment to pass across his features.

“I still need to ask you something. If I never really owed you anything, then... what is this? Why have I been bound to you this whole time? We still made some sort of deal, didn’t we?”

He nods and smiles, looking almost proud at her for not forgetting to ask him this.

“You have been bound by a devilish IOU, as I like to call them. When you prayed to be heard and summoned me, you committed yourself to a favor of my choosing, to be paid at a later date. I said you'd be stuck with me until I collected on my debt, and since I don’t know if or when I'll be back, no time like the present.” He pauses. “So I'm cashing in, right now.”

Chloe swallows. This is it, then. This is the Devil asking his due. What if it’s still something she can’t give? Lucifer wouldn’t ask too much, though, would he? Not after everything he has said. Not with the way he looks at her, like there is no one else in the universe.

“Tell me, then,” she encourages him, bracing herself for the answer. “What is it that you want? What is it that you… desire?”

Lucifer takes a step back, disentangling his fingers from hers, putting distance between them as if wanting to give her the chance to run away.

“One kiss.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows. “That's it? One kiss in exchange for saving my life?”

He nods again. “That's it,” he confirms. “Unless it’s too much to ask, of course.”

Chloe shakes her head. Her heart beats wildly in her chest as she reclaims the distance he put between them. She presses one hand against his chest and leans forward, stretching on her tiptoes, and doesn’t miss the way Lucifer’s breath hitches as his eyes focus on her lips.

But then, the Devil suddenly steps back, grasps her hand, and lifts it in his between them. He presses a slow, tender, almost regal kiss to the back of Chloe’s hand, looking her in the eyes as he does. His lips are a shockwave against her skin, a zap of electricity that leaves her weak and helpless.

The moment they’re gone, the chain snaps and bursts between them in a cloud of stardust, little glowing specks disappearing before they hit the ground. The silver band and matching collar open and dissolve as if they were never there. Chloe feels her skin smooth where the Devil’s mark used to be, feels the absence of that constant source of pulsing heat and light.

Finally, it’s over. She’s free. She's free, god _dammit_.

Lucifer smiles at her, lets go of her hand and turns around. Chloe grabs his wrist, lightning-quick, scared he might be gone in the blink of an eye if she doesn’t stop him.

“Wait.”

Lucifer stares down at their hands, then up at her. Chloe weaves their fingers together again and steps into his personal space.

“Lucifer, have _you_ ever been kissed?”

He looks away and chuckles. Chloe knows what fake bravado looks like on his face, now.

“But of course, Detective. Everyone knows I'm skilled with tongues, especially my own.”

“No, I mean… just kissed? Without anything else being asked of you?”

 _I ask people their desires to fulfill them_ , he told her once. Has anyone ever fulfilled his?

Lucifer blinks at her, confused. Then slowly, tentatively, he shakes his head and looks away. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Chloe lifts her free hand to cup his face for real, startling him, then holds it in place to reassure him that it’s okay. She brushes her thumb over his sharp cheekbone, and he leans into her touch, exhaling shakily. Starved. For this. For her.

“Detective–” he starts, but Chloe doesn’t let him finish.

She kisses him with all the tenderness she can give him, guiding his head at an angle to gently press him closer. Lucifer makes a sound she can’t quite place – of relief, mostly, but mixed with an anguish she knows she can’t even begin to comprehend. He doesn’t dare to touch her until she buries her other hand in his hair and tentatively pries his lips open with her tongue, earning a groan from him.

Only then, he wraps his arms around her. Only then, he pulls her close to him, almost hoisting her up against him, and kisses her back with her same abandon, quietly moaning against her lips. The scales of his coat are rough and itchy against her chest, and in a split second of almost overwhelming lust, Chloe wants nothing more than to push it open and feel the heat of Lucifer’s pale skin under her palms, her lips, all caution be damned.

She thinks of giving him more than this, and she almost does, almost steps back to take his hand and drag him to her car so they can go home together, _be_ together, even just this once.

Because at the end of the day, the Devil never really asked her for anything. All he did was give. Give her a new life, and his company, and his feelings spread out for her to crush them while she couldn’t even find the guts to voice her own, only to end everything with a soft, stupid kiss to the back of her hand as if he couldn’t possibly expect or deserve more from her.

But Lucifer has never been kissed. _Just_ kissed. And even if her soul was never his to take, this, this Chloe can gladly give.

He is the one to pull away from her, panting harshly. Chloe leans her forehead against his and closes her eyes, just breathing his same air for a moment as they cup each other’s cheeks, frozen in time.

“I know it will be difficult, but… will you try to come again if I call?” she whispers, pulling back slightly to look at him. “Or does it work only if I'm on the brink of death?”

Lucifer chuckles, then brushes a loose strand of hair away from her face. He looks ancient, and young, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Suddenly, his glowing wings greet her one last time, bright against the darkness surrounding them. She gasps.

“Just pray to the Devil, darling. He’ll be listening.”

Then he parts from her with one last peck, short and soft, and a caress.

“Until we meet again, Detective Decker,” he tells her with a smile, as playful as he can manage through the emotion that sits so plainly on his face.

Chloe smiles back at him, unable to speak, and watches as he closes his eyes and flaps his wings down into the ground. She keeps staring at the spot he just vacated, slowly coming to terms with what just happened, with everything, with the not-quite-love but possibly the start of it that she knows is now engraved in her heart – a mark she is not sure will be erased, a pact she is not sure she’ll be released from, a chain she is not sure she wants to break.

She vows to go home and put her father’s necklace back on, just in case. After all, hers was not a curse, more like a blessing. A dark deal with a bright silver lining.

She brings her fingers to her mouth, tracing the contours of it, kiss-swollen and tingling.

Nothing has ever tasted sweeter than her Devil’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. 😥 *hugs* I guess we can imagine Lucifer will still visit every now and then, or move to LA eventually: I left it up to you :) As always, thank you for reading, and don't hate me too much ❤ love you all!

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, [this](https://www.serialzone.cz/serial/kuroshitsuji/) is the image that inspired the whole chain concept. In the manga/anime, the star-shaped symbol forms over the eye of the person instead of the skin. If you like, let me know what you think! :)


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